The Ocean at The End of the Lane isn't quite like any other Neil Gaiman book I've read, and I've read them all.

It's spooky, but not about the dead, like The Graveyard Book. It occasionally fills you with existential dread, like American Gods, but on a much smaller, homelier scale. And it puts you in mind of secret worlds, but much earthier ones than Neverwhere.
Also there's a lot more in the way of baked goods.

Every year when the Man Booker Prize longlist is announced, I think to myself: "I should read all those book and be an intellectual person that people see on the street and think: 'My goodness! There goes a well-read intellectual person.'"

This has never happened. The reading bit or the stranger admiration.

But, it's that time of year again and so I am here to talk about We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo.